While that's absolutely true, Weir won more than his fair share of headers up against that dumplin Smart. I think 'panic' sums Smart up perfectly, even when he gets the ball with no-one near him, he kicks it in whatever direction he's facing. Tweed wasn't much better, although at least had the decency to win headers up against players a foot shorter than him.

I'm still amused that Baikie thinks it's a good idea to play Dougie Cameron, a centre midfielder, at left back while playing Fotheringham, a left back, the the centre of midfield.

Couple of things.

Grays behaviour was clearly designed to piss people off, if there was a couple of idiots that rose to it properly then Wullie can't really just blame other people can he? smacks of his usual, 'I'm the victim' pish.

Secondly, I have no intention of coming to Bayview. Your Chairman's stated ambition is to humiliate my team, why would I give him money?

Steady now MTR! We were simply waiting on our mini buses back to Styx, as we ALWAYS do post match. We had a bit of (light hearted and in good humour) banter with the EF players and officials on the way out (both ways I may add). Ask your big brother, we were talking to him at the time. We were not waiting for Jabba the Hutt. He left from the top end anyways before our second bus arrived.

Gate money goes to East Fife F.C, not Willie Gray. Hopefully there wont be many Raith fans hoping to travel to Methil anyway, to avoid disappointment.

Tickets will be sorted out long before the game takes place anyway, East Fife fans will have ample opportunity to purchase one. However Raith choose to distrube their 100 or so tickets will be up to them I suppose.

Maybe fans can bid on ebay for them.

Found out BTW, that the angry mob outside Starks yesterday was led by a certain Mr Quinn!

so why the hell did your fans sing " your no singing anymore" after you scored surely you can hear us if most of the raith fans did.

EF football club may get the gate money. Fair enough. EFFC, however, is currently nothing more than a revenge vehicle for Gray. Therefore, any money invested in squad development etc. is designed to do nothing more than to help Gray get 'revenge'.

Wulli Gray isn't getting my money. After he's left EF, i'll be happy to visit.

You were all sitting on your hands then. We only knew you were singing when you were all standing up and clapping in unison.

I've heard similar stories.

If we receive 100 or so tickets, then do you honestly think there will be 1900 East Fife fans in attendance? I don't doubt the tickets will be sold, but there'll be a lot of Raith fans in that 1900...

Will Supporters Club members get offered tickets before anyone else?

After season ticket holders, of course.

And?

I'll be there no matter what end I have to go in.

The Raith muppets are hurting.
This was their big game, their chance to come out of the blocks and put one over us, but they bottled it big style...

Delusion is rife,
When you support East Fife.

ould only hear east fife once and that was signing east fife east fife ! only song you methil tinks know !

girfuy

Worst fishing trip ever.

heard wullie gray almost choked on a sannie at half time lucky b*****d

I thought the rule was that the away team has to get at least 10% of the ticket allocation?

we "bottled" beating East Fife?! Funniest thing i've heard all day

I don't think anybody cheered at the final whistle.

We're your derby and until you become good enough to get into the same league as Dunfermline, we'll be the only one you've got. If you can't get even a wee bit excited by that then what's the point.

Your 'we don't care' line would be more convincing if your fellow fans on here were saying the same thing or if your home crowd didn't almost double for our visit.

Hmmmmm! Has it calmed down in here yet?

In the lead up to the game I was a bit "meh" about it, but by the end I was a nervous wreck!
It was the best game i've watched for many a year. A big thanks go to my team because of the way they played throughout but also, grudgingly, to the fat controller for stoking the fire!


Now to my thoughts on the teams

Raith

• Weir & Wardlaw linked up very well yesterday, neither are out-and-out goal poachers but they caused Tweed & Smart no end of problems for 60 minutes. Smith seems to be the only proper striker we have and we need him for the full season to have any chance of winning this league.
• With 4 clear chances and 1 penalty, no-one would have complained had we gone in at the break at least 2 up, yet every chance created served to highlight our players' lack of composure. We must be more clinical in front of goal.
• Considering WG and his jibe about junior players, I thought Cook handled Shields very well and was clearly picked out by Baikie as our weak link pre-match – every East Fife attack was played up our left in the 1^st half and Cook was not found wanting.
• Wilson, penalty miss aside, was outstanding again and went up the right flank at will. Even Stanic won’t be able to handle him next time!!
• I thought once the 2^nd penalty was saved that we’d do well to get a point out of the game, as our level of play dropped slightly and EF got a huge lift but even then, we were still pushing on.
• I was puzzled why McGlynn brought on Graham? This meant 2 youth strikers up against 2 experienced centre halves at a time when our midfield was flagging. Pelosi in for Ferry would have shored up the centre of the pitch better.

East Fife

• McManus is still the same player – woeful first touch, weak left foot and ploughing a lone furrow into the corners. If he didn’t have pace he’d be doing a different job.
• Once Bobby Linn came on, EF played much better. He was more direct, made EF play more offensive and consequently brought more players into the game, especially Fotheringham (who is the 1 EF player I would take in my team).
• Even though Tweed was clearly hampered by an injury, he is twice the defender the East Fife fans consider Smart to be and put in some goal saving blocks.
• EF should utilise their no.11 more (Campbell?). He had good touch & fair pace but was never given the ball due to Baikie’s obsession with going up our left flank.
• I breathed a huge sigh of relief at 1-1 when I saw O’Reilly come on instead of Templeman. If ever there was a player to score at this point it was big Temps so thanks Baikie!
• I feel their manager has wasted his options when getting in players - he is going to spend the rest of the season trying to fit square pegs into round holes and this will hamper any serious attempts at the title. One look at the bench confirmed this, all strikers apart from Fagan.
  

I thought the referee let play go fairly well too and was quite decent. I’m sure some EF fans will claim he was a homer though but they were clear penalties. However, surely O’Connor should have been booked for handling outside his area?

Also, congrats to the guy who won the 50-50 draw and his TAX-FREE winnings and to the East Fife fans, that was the best away support i've seen at Starks for many a year. Our fans were great too, behind the team for the full 90. It's a shame the 2 stands are miles apart, we can hardly hear each other!


Sorry for the humungous post!

I'm sure Fife police will have something to say about that as it's likely Raith fans would pick up tickets for the home end......

McGlynn says that's the best Rovers have played in his time there yet you didn't win!
Baikie says we were poor yet we didn't get beat!
Says it all really!

McGlynn is wrong. I've seen his teams play better before.

Baikie is right, you're shite.

The league table says it all.

They were.

Some EF fans talk utter shit, not one has come out and stated that their team was completely outplayed. If that is the best EF can offer then they have no chance of a playoff at the top end of the table. Your team will be found out with the lack of pace.

Stanic to come in another slow defensive player just what you need, Young to come into midfield, ha, a rovers reject and before any EF fans says he isn't, he was, told he wasn't good enough and released, to play juniors, but, wait your chairman doesn't rate junior players.

Hears a suggestion if EF can't house the Raith fans then perhaps they are in to a high league and should be playing in the 3rd with their usual 800 home gates and should drop back to where you belong.

Its not. Most East Fife fans have said that...

On another day we could have had the game wrapped up by half time. We didnt though.

However, I saw enough yesterday to suggest that we will be up there by the end of the season. We hardly bottled it. It was a pulsating encounter in which both teams gave their absolute all! East Fife lacked quality though, and I dont see them as title contenders.

Geezo, a point against us and EF fans are wanking away like theres no tomorrow!

And yet again a thread about a very enjoyable football match gets bogged down with the usual shite about crowd size and all the other pish being spouted around.

If you want to slag each other off, fine please use the pinned Fife thread, if you want to talk about the game itself use this one.

Raith were the better team, there's no doubt about it. Willie McCulloch pulled off a few great saves, as well as the penalties which kept us in the game. I've seen lots of much more one-sided game than that one though.

That wasn't the best we can offer.



Stanic is a good player, Young's a good player.



Here's another suggestion. If we can't house all the Raith fans then we just won't.

I was expecting a load of vitriolic nonsense to be honest but the Fife fans seem to have a bit of dignity about them, more than the Cowden fans last season anyway.

The team may be shite but the fans are a'right.

Got to agree with that. When we play at bayview, it is fair game if they don't want to allocate the tickets to be more even. Just got to live with that. We can't really complain as we'll have made a good profit from yesterday...more than East Fife will make from the derby at Bayview.

Completely agree. Here's the thing though, neither of them will offer you much more than you had yesterday. Stanic does not offer great mobility, something you were seriously missing in defence. His performance at left back may be better than the clown you had out yesterday but he's still gonna struggle for pace and he's not gonna be able to link with the midfield 'cos he won't be able to go forward. apparently, he'll probably be played Centre Mid anyway.

Young is not as good as Bobby Linn.

Our failings are in front of goal, the player we've got coming back has scored 4 goals in his last 4 league games.

Good post.

seconded.

Haven't read the thread, doubt I could add much more. Really gutted for Wardlaw, he was tremendous yesterday. While we retained our shape, I'd say we were the better team, It would be hard to argue otherwise. When you misss two penalties you really don't deserve to win. As the game wore on and we opened out it became really end to end. I'd definately say that Linn and Fagan added something to EF that they had lacked before. I'd have either before I'd take back Mcmanus. thought Fozzie seemed to be less than controlled in his agression than I recall, but no odubt it was the derby atmosphere.

MoM: Mculloch, think we can all agree on that one.

I don't know that the chant was tongue in cheek. It didn't come across that way to me and it was pretty disappointing to hear. Fozzy did his best for us and didn't deserve that. That, and our complete lack of a killer instinct/penalty taker, were the only sour notes of a great game yesterday. The only game that has come close to that for me in the last few years was the ST Johnstone game last season. Although on the whole I was gutted we didn't get the convincing win we really should have, after East Fife fluked the lead the game was a lot more evely balanced and we could have ended up losing it so a draw isn't the end of the world.

The world does not revolve around Wullie Gray, I understand why the man's excess mass might make you believe it does, however, that small crowd outside Starks' didn't give a shit who was coming out that entrance, the mini bus to Styx was late picking us up, leaving us strande dfor 20 odd minutes, Gray and his followers must have a huge persecution complex if 16 folk waiting for a lift translates into an angry mob....

I must have good hearing because i certainly heard the fife fans yesterday.We deserved to win yesterday but we didnt.It was a great game yesterday but a bit worrying we dont have a striker who can put the ball away.

Especially when a few of them were wummin, and one of them was a Quinny.

Dunno about that, I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Mags

Cracking match yesterday.

Not even too bothered that we didnt get the win we fully deserved.

Left the ground believing that we will be thereabouts at the end of the season - some really good football played at a pace which the Methil lot couldnt cope with.

I will tell you this though - East Fife will be lucky to make the play-offs on that performance.
Their defence is probably the slowest Ive seen at this level and if it wasnt for the flying whale in goals, we'd have won by 3 or 4.

They are spending all that money on so many players who are way past their best.
Willie is so concerned with putting one over on us by signing our cast-offs, he has failed to recognise that his team lack the pace and enthusiasm that youth brings.

Oh big fucking deal!

Poor old Wullie eh? He started this whole situation! Hes no more an East Fife fan than I am, simply using them as a tool to get one over the Rovers. Aint gonna happen.

f**k Anger Management, shouting abuse at Gray was the best therapy ive had in years

Just a point and not a dig at you, but I reckon although Jabba the Fuck is bankrolling them, won't it be Baikie who decides who to sign / play? Or is the fat twat another Romanov?

Fair point.

I don't know what the set-up is there to be honest, but I can't imagine Jabba being happy paying money for these guys if they don't play.

Maybe one of the EF fans can clear this up???

We do, he was just injured yesterday

McGlynn will probably need to get one of those emergency loans now to bring in another striker. We're now down to just Weir and Smith, and it's clear Bryce and Graham aren't ready for first team football yet. I'm not blaming McGlynn though for our lack of strikers, we just don't seem to be carrying much luck with injuries at the moment

Yup, another good point.

I was saying that at half time, that EF players were just a bunch of mercenaries glad to play for anyone who'll pay another year or two's wages.

But when I saw how the whole team flocked around McCulloch after the second penalty save and how they were urging each other on I changed my mind - the enthusiasm and committment's there alright.

The ability has been abducted though.

I think theres ability there. Theyre not all has-beens either. Theyre definitely the slowest team Ive seen in this division so far tho.

I seen last night that we equalised 5 mins after EF scored. Fuck me, I thought it seemed a lot longer than that!

It's quite funny seeing the carpet-dodgers working themselves into a lather over this game.
The Fife fans are perfectly phlegmatic about our current situation.
For us it was a poorish first-half but we finished the game the stronger side. In the wider scheme of things Davie Baikie called it spot on. We were up against a team that have managed to establish themselves as a Second Division outfit. I didn't see anything to suggest that Raith are any better than potential play-off candidates.
For me the league is still wide open...